REGENERATION, if done right can bring real benefits to some of our hard-pressed communities.

It should be a process not an event and be done for communities rather than too communities.

The process should not enrich the regeneration professionals and top up local authority coffers at the expense of our communities.

If you spend public money then work the money exceptionally hard to maximise every possible benefit.

Any regeneration bodies set up to spend public money should be democratically accountable, publicly audited and only established after a widespread accessible consultative process.

The danger is that some local authorities locally see regeneration as a way of accessing additional public monies rather than bringing meaningful beneficial change to our communities.

In recent years this trend has sat with a disturbing tendency to marginalise any real community real involvement in the regeneration process, which undermines the very objective of community based regeneration.

Jonathan T Clark Allt-yr-yn Heights Newport